The cultural phenomena and writing systems we studied were incredibly interesting, and enriched my understanding of Japanese society and culture. The tutorials were helpful, especially the essay writing segments in tutorial 2. However, the peer review assignment was a mess. It took me way to long to read other people's essays because they hadn't put furigana next to the kanji we hadn't studied, and you couldn't copy-paste either. I think that's mostly to do with the people whose essays I received, but I think the subject coordinator should do more to fix these problems so we don't have to spend so long on other people's work. Also a few questions on the exam were very unfair and basically required a photographic memory of arbitrary lecture content. Luckily it didn't take away from the bulk of the questions that actually tested you on necessary skills and knowledge. For the most part though, great subject.